Kiss Your Miracle

One morning on our vacation in Michigan Adam and I went outside to take Sky for a walk, only to find our stroller squished beneath a massive tree limb. Apparently, the branch had fallen from the very top of a tree next to my parents’ house, landing with enough force to damage two bicycles and bend the steel frame of our deluxe, baby-shower-gift stroller. Adam managed to get it rolling again, but now it pulls hard to the left. It doesn’t look so good either. “Maybe we can get another one, a double stroller for when the new baby comes,” Adam said. “Yeah,” I said, knowing we were both thinking about how much a big double stroller probably costs.

We trudged back inside and I found myself wondering why stuff like that happens. Sometimes it seems like the crises we walk through eventually have a deep impact on our faith in God. They can shape our character and even bring out the best in us. But little things like stubbed toes, fender benders, the flu, a wrecked stroller – they’re just plain annoying.

I guess life in a fallen world means putting up with aggravation. How we react in the unexpected hassles we face probably says a lot about the quality of our character. And if that’s the case, then I need to work more on how I handle minor annoyances. I tend to complain a lot and call it “venting,” which makes it seem like my whining is actually therapeutic and somehow beneficial. But when I stop and think about it, I have to admit that I don’t like to be around people who complain, especially about temporary, insignificant things. (The exception to that, of course, would be funny people – a category in which I do not place myself.) I figure that at the very least, I should try to be a person that I myself can tolerate. So maybe the next time I lose my keys, I’ll be careful with how I respond. Maybe. We’ll see. Losing your keys is really irritating.

To be completely honest, there was one more factor in my decision not to go back to work that I didn’t mention at the time: a positive pregnancy test. I started feeling sick in the beginning of June and this time around I knew right away it wasn’t the flu. At least for me, pregnancy nausea feels different than a stomach bug. Things I normally love sound awful. The thought of coffee or wine is enough to make me gag. Salad and vegetables? Terrible. But grilled cheese or macaroni? Heaven. Somehow I’m able to feel nauseas and still eat more and worse than usual. So when I suddenly had morning sickness along with the inability to keep my eyes open past 9:30pm, I told Adam we should think about doing a home pregnancy test.

When we did the test, the control line showed up clear and dark. A light second line appeared a few minutes later, so faint I wondered if we were imagining it. “Is this positive?” Adam asked. “I don’t trust it,” I said immediately, anxiety tightening my neck. It’s not that I didn’t want to be pregnant – it’s that our years of infertility trained me to hate home pregnancy tests. I’d heard that any second line is a positive, but ours was so very faint. I looked closely at the stick, narrowing my eyes. How cruel for it to not even give us a straight answer.

Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to me. Maybe I was pregnant, but the baby was stuck in my fallopian tube. That would throw off my hormones and maybe give us a barely-there positive. I only have one tube to begin with (my other was removed during surgery years ago), and at one point a test showed my remaining tube as 100% blocked. We know that God opened the tube enough for Sky’s little embryonic self to pass through it, but the pessimistic, fearful side of me didn’t assume that would automatically happen again.

At that point we hadn’t made our final decision about my work situation. “There’s no way you’re going back to teaching now,” Adam said suddenly. “Not if you’re pregnant again.” I stomped around the kitchen making dinner. “I can’t think about this right now,” I said. I was planning to get up at 4am the next morning to fly with Skylar to Chicago to see my family. “Let’s just wait until I get back next week,” I said to Adam. “I’ll do another test and maybe it’ll be easier to read.”

A week later our second test was the same as the first and I wanted to scream. How could it not have changed at all? Shouldn’t the line be darker by now? Or nonexistent? Stupid pregnancy tests! I felt like I’d been trying to keep my emotions on pause – not get too excited yet, but not let myself feel disappointed either – and a girl can only do that for so long. I called my doctor’s office and because of my history, they scheduled an early ultrasound, but not until the end of June. “That’s three weeks away!” I said to the nurse on the phone. “Yes, I know,” she said sweetly. “And if you have any sharp pains or bleeding, feel free to call us right away.” I hung up in a daze. Apparently, if the baby was in my tube, I’d figure it out on my own in a less than enjoyable manner. I sighed. Three weeks felt like forever.

In the meantime, Adam and I talked more about my work decision. I taught through my first pregnancy and was willing to do it again. Wouldn’t another baby on the way make things even more stressful financially? But when Adam gently asked me how I felt about it, I admitted that it sounded awful – just the thought of teaching full-time while pregnant and with a toddler at home overwhelmed me. “So that’s that,” he said calmly. “The money will work itself out. This is the right decision for us either way. It’s what we were leaning towards already. The new baby just makes it an easier choice for us.” Adam looked more relaxed than ever, but I was a big ball of nerves. What if we weren’t actually having a new baby? What if I was about to lose my only remaining fallopian tube instead?

Thankfully, pregnancy-induced exhaustion took over my brain every night and I had no trouble sleeping. I even began to feel a bit more settled as the days passed. A verse from Psalm 139 came to my mind whenever I wondered about the baby: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (v. 16). God knows how long this baby will live, I would remind myself, and he loves this child even more than we do.

Still, I spent the morning of the ultrasound on the verge of a panic attack. When we were finally called back to the examining room, I laid down on the table, explaining to the tech that I have a tipped uterus and sometimes it’s hard to get a good picture of it. I was barely able to get the words out when right there on the screen was the image of a tiny baby – 2 cm to be exact – tucked in exactly the right place, its little heart flickering away at 170bpm. Adam held Sky with one arm and reached down with his free hand for mine. “Everything looks great! You’re eight weeks and four days,” said the tech. “Your due date is February 2^nd.”

Throughout the rest of the day I cried quietly on and off. One miracle baby was enough. But two? I thought about the summer of 2007, when we felt God leading us to wait rather than try IVF again. It made no sense to us at the time. The pain of wanting a baby was so intense that it colored everything else in my life. To think that God had planned to bless us with not just one child, but children – the word “extravagant” comes to mind whenever I think about it. Life can be so painful, even vicious sometimes. But God has been sweet to us, removing our biggest heartache. The day of our ultrasound I wanted to pray, but couldn’t find the words. Anne Lammot, one of my favorite writers, says that some of her best prayers are “Please, please, please,” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Sometimes I’m just glad that God already knows my thoughts.

I know we’ll face hardship down the road in one way or another. A healthy pregnancy now does not guarantee a healthy nine months or a healthy child. And I will admit, even if things go perfectly, the thought of having a newborn when my firecracker Skylar is just a year and a half old terrifies me. But for now, my focus is on our Almighty God and what he has done for us again, blessing us with another life growing beneath my heart.

I gave up my teaching position yesterday. My principal was wonderful about it, gracious and understanding, even though he now has to find a replacement for me. But I walked out of the school feeling funny. I can no longer say I teach there. I am officially jobless.

On the drive to school, practicality surged to the front of my brain and my head filled with questions. Is it wise to let go of a sure thing, a career with about as much job security as a person could hope for these days? What will we do if Adam, who works in the troubled home building industry, loses his job? What about all of my mom friends who say work is fulfilling and satisfying, that they like contributing to their families financially? But I managed to push my doubts aside and have the conversation I’d planned, trying not to think about it all too much.

It wasn’t until I got home and saw little Sky, clapping in delight to see me (clapping is her newest skill), that I suddenly felt good about our decision. I let out the breath I’d been holding and scooped her up in my arms. I do want to contribute financially, but not if it means teaching full-time. To be completely honest, I never found teaching all that fulfilling or satisfying in the first place. There were things about it that I liked, but it doesn’t compare to being with Sky. Yes, there are days when I count the minutes till Adam gets home. But overall, I’m living the life I always wanted. I feel strange when I’m away from my little girl. I like the way we hang out in our pajamas half the day, the way things are flexible and low key. I like not missing out on the small, every day things in her life. When I go into her room to get her up from a nap, I always open the door slowly so I can be sure to see her face when she spots me. Then I walk over to the edge of her crib, look down into her sleepy-smiley face and say, “Are you really my baby girl?”

I don’t believe the working mom issue is a moral, right or wrong decision. I know that if I chose to go back to school, God would be with me. He would give me the energy to teach and an attachment to my students. He would give me the grace to handle life as a working mom, as he has to so many of my friends, and he would give me the ability to make the best of it. But it’s not what I want to do. If I went ahead with it anyway, my motive would mainly be fear – fear that we’d struggle too much financially or that I might regret the decision later. It’s a risk to let the job go when I don’t have anything else lined up yet. But instead of focusing on the what-ifs, I want to let the situation motivate me to be persistent in searching for a better job, something I can do part-time, something that earns a little money without sacrificing what’s valuable to me: days at home with my miracle baby.

Should I go back to work? It’s a loaded question. Most people I’ve encountered seem to have a strong opinion on the topic of working mothers. For me, the issue was simpler before I actually became a mom, when the discussion was all just in theory. Back when motherhood was only a daydream, I always pictured myself at home. But somehow the reality I live in today is more complicated than that. I’ve been home since Skylar’s birth last July, officially on a one-year leave from my high school teaching position. But now, with the 08-09 school year drawing to a close, I have a decision to make: do I go back to teaching or let the principal give my spot to someone else?

I’d like to work part-time. Occasionally my school district allows two teachers to share a full-time position. I’d get to teach, but have half the students and half the hours. I’ve also looked into tutoring, online teaching, and online grading. It seems like there are plenty of things I could do to bring in a little extra money without sacrificing the majority of my day at home with Sky. But my problem is that none of those things have come together yet. And my principal said no to part-time teaching, but the full-time position is still waiting for me, complete with health benefits.

My mom suggested that Adam and I pray about the decision every day, so we have. But sometimes it seems like the more I think about it, and the more I try to figure out what’s best, the more uncertain I feel. I page through my Bible asking for God to speak, wanting to suddenly find a big “NO” or “YES” in black ink before me. I was texting with my brother Nelson last week and told him I’ve been agonizing over what to do. “I know,” he wrote back. “It’s hard to make those decisions. ‘Left or right, Lord?’ Then He says, ‘I love you.'” Nelson’s right. And it’s wonderful the way God prioritizes his love for us over any circumstance we face. But I have to admit, my reaction is often an impatient, “Yes God, I know you love me, but what do I do?”

This past weekend I was in Chicago visiting my family and one afternoon I went out to lunch with Nelson and my brother Klaus. We talked about our work and money issues, and then somehow got onto the topic of insomnia, something Adam’s dealt with on and off for years. I was telling them that whenever Adam says he’s really hoping for a good night’s sleep, it’s usually a sign that he’ll be up for hours. It’s like he’s concentrating on it too much. Then Nelson said, “Kind of like when you ask God for a specific answer. If you put all your focus on the yes or no, sometimes it evades you.”

I’m still thinking about that conversation. Of course, God wants us to come to him for guidance. But have I been seeking God? Or just the answer to my dilemma? I think the two are supposed to be inseparable; we should seek God and wisdom simultaneously. But somehow in the decision-making process I seem to have lost focus. I have prayed about the job. But I’ve spent much more time thinking about it. Worrying over it. I’ve looked through my Bible, but with tunnel vision. I can’t honestly say I’ve been quiet before God, open to whatever he might have to tell me, whether it relates to my job dilemma or not. Oswald Chambers says, “The questions that matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words – ‘Come to Me.'” I’m a planner and I like to have things decided. But maybe it’s time for me to take a break from over-analyzing my circumstances and just sit in the presence of the Lord.

The other day I was doing some organizing in our home office while Sky sat on the floor playing. She was concentrating hard on closing this little plastic Easter egg she’d found, and when I glanced down at her honey-colored curls and her careful baby hands I had a rush of gratitude for my life as a mom. A box of my old journals sat on the floor near her, so I decided to dig out the one I kept during our last year of infertility. I wanted to read the end of it especially, the part where I was pregnant but didn’t know it yet. And it made me smile – the way I wrote about how tired I was and couldn’t seem to concentrate on my students. But something else jumped out at me from the pages: I was obsessed with God.

Almost every entry talks about him. Or to him. Probably a third of the journal is written prayer. I wrote about the Bible studies I was doing, the spiritual discussions Adam and I were having, our fasting days. I wrote out confessions and prayers for forgiveness and the things I wanted most out of life. Some days I had just copied Bible verses onto the pages. And it made me think: if I was thriving in my faith then, what am I now? I still pray every day. Adam and I try to get in a few minutes together with our Bibles before he leaves for work in the mornings. But if I had to categorize my spiritual life overall these days, I’d probably call it… well, distracted. Is that how most new moms feel? Some days it’s hard to keep a train of thought going long enough to find the grocery list. I’ll pick up the pencil and realize that shoot, whatever I was going to write down vanished from my head in the five seconds it took me to walk over here.

In a way, my intensity during our infertility makes sense. Infertility forced me to a crisis point in my faith. Over and over as I cried about the pain, a question would come to my mind: if God never gives me a baby, does that mean my relationship with him is done? And as soon as I could feel that thought on the horizon of my mind I’d will it to go away, telling God, “Please, please, don’t make me answer that.” And I’d try to keep praying. But once the thought arrived, I couldn’t get rid of it. He wouldn’t let me get around it. I was constantly confronted with the reality that truly following God can’t be conditional, no matter what circumstance I want to change. Some people think becoming a Christian means making one big decision to follow Jesus. And in a way it does. But my experience is that Jesus constantly asks me that question. “Will you follow me? Even now when you’re hurt? Confused? Will you follow me through this when you don’t understand what I’m doing?” Infertility brought me to a place where I had to choose definitively: I was either going with God or heading off alone. There was no in between. Those days were so difficult for me that I had to lean on him just to get by. It wasn’t possible to be half-hearted.

Then, just like that, I was pregnant. And suddenly, life picked up speed. We put our house on the market and it sold in a week. We moved into an apartment and started building another house. I finished the school year 36 weeks pregnant and we moved again, into a different apartment. After Sky was born we moved once more, this time into our new house. We were thrilled to have our miracle baby and completely overwhelmed by her at the same time. Most of my journal then, when I did manage to write, was full of details about my sleepless nights, my breastfeeding issues, and the parenting books I was reading. I know I was reading my Bible too, but I don’t really remember God teaching me specific things – just that he was with me.

When I think about God these days his sweetness to me comes to mind first. But reading that old journal made me wonder about my passion for him. Have I become complacent? Or is it just that my life has changed so we interact in a new way now? Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” God proved the truth of those words to me during the infertility. I don’t think that means I’m not close to God now, but somehow my bond to him feels different. It seems to me that in all relationships there are times of focused connection and times of simply being together quietly. Maybe it’s the same way with God. I don’t want my faith to be based primarily on feelings, where I need to create a big, emotional experience every time I pray and I don’t believe that’s what God requires. But at the same time, I don’t want to turn to him just when things are hard and excuse myself from seeking him when things are good.

Maybe comparing my relationship with God now to how it was then is the wrong way to evaluate things. Even as I write this I hear that same, simple question in my head, Jesus asking me, “Are you following me today, whether things are awful or boring or wonderful?” And I think that maybe I’m complicating what he intends to be basic – simply doing what I can to move forward with him today.